Jaanika Peerna

May 1 – 30, 2015

Part of the EU Month of Culture, this May Hillyer Art Space is partnering with the Embassy of Estonia to present LIGHT MATTER, an exhibition and performance by artist Jaanika Peerna. Peerna has created a room-size drawing installation which will consists of works in varying scale and presence.

Her large scale dense surfaces of freehand straight line drawings are made by leaving traces of her body “falling down” with a bundle of pencils and they have the energy of decending liquid matter (water or oil). Her Maelstroms Series works are made by rotating her right arm freely
from her shoulder to capture the dynamics of swirling air.

Small scale drawings try to contain turbulent puffs of air within a tiny area of the artwork. Physicists have been trying to create matter out of light. Jaanika Peerna combines light, Mylar and traces of movement to create works that point towards LIGHT MATTER.

Her live performance brings the physical act of drawing in a world of physical limitations into focus.

Jaanika Peerna is an Estonian-born artist living and working primarily in New York since 1998 as well as in Berlin and Tallinn. Her work encompasses drawing, video, installation and performance, often dealing with the theme of transitions in light, air, water and other natural phenomena. She is often involved in collaborative projects working with designers, dancers and musicians. She has exhibited her work extensively in the entire New York metropolitan area as well as in Berlin, Paris, Tallinn, Helsinki, Venice, Rome, Dubai, Sydney, and Moscow. Her work is in numerous private collections in the US and Europe and was recently acquired by Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris. Her work is represented in the United States by ARC Fine Art in Connecticut, M Contemporary in Sydney, and Galerie Ulf Larsson in Cologne.

www.jaanikapeerna.net